Director of Public Prosecutions decides not to prosecute Antony Leung

DPP Decides not to Prosecute Antony Leung************************************The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mr Grenville Cross, SC, hasdecided not to prosecute former Financial Secretary, Mr Antony Leung, for hisactions in respect of a car purchased shortly before an increase in First RegistrationTax in the 2003 Budget. The DPP came to the decision after full consideration of theevidence, the law and the opinions given by two leading counsel at the private Bar,one in Hong Kong and the other in England.Speaking at a meet-the-media session today (Dec 15), Mr Cross said that, onthe totality of the evidence, a prosecution could not be justified as it could not beproved Mr Leung deliberately sought to evade tax on a car he purchased in January2003.He said his decision was accepted by the Secretary for Justice, Ms Elsie Leung.She had, Mr Cross said, from the early stage of the case, delegated to him the task ofdeciding whether or not to prosecute Mr Leung. This was done in order to avoid anypossible perception of bias because of her former working relationship with Mr Leung,Mr Cross stressed that, had the whole of the evidence afforded a reasonableprospect of conviction, it would have been in the public interest to prosecute MrLeung.He said both leading counsel from the private Bar, Mr John Griffiths, SC, andMr Martin Wilson, QC, concluded that when the totality of the evidence wasexamined a prosecution of Mr Leung for the offence of misconduct in public officecould not be justified and that a reasonable prospect of securing a conviction in thiscase simply did not exist.Mr Cross added that Mr Griffiths and Mr Wilson were correct to advise thatalthough Mr Leung should have made a declaration to the Executive Council abouthis recent purchase, this was not misconduct of sufficient seriousness to justifyprosecution as it appeared on the evidence to be due to nothing more sinister than adesire to avoid personal embarrassment.When all the evidence in this case was weighed, criminality could not beestablished to the required standard to institute a prosecution, Mr Cross said.Mr Cross added that prosecutions in Hong Kong could only ever be institutedon the basis of sufficiency of evidence. A prosecution should never be started unlessthe prosecutor was satisfied that there was admissible, substantial and reliableevidence to justify placing a person upon trial.If, once everything was considered, it was decided that a reasonable prospectof securing a conviction was absent, a suspect would not be prosecuted, Mr Cross said.“It has never been the rule in this jurisdiction that those suspected of criminaloffences must automatically be the subject of prosecution,” he added.

The following is the full text of two statements issued by the Secretary forJustice, Ms Elsie Leung, and the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Grenville Cross,SC, today (Dec 15) on the case concerning Mr Antony Leung.End/Monday, December 15, 2003NNNN